Dear Spug,

My question is, do carp recognise colour? I've heard it said that they cannot see the colour red, but if it's thought that they can identify different colours, what colour would you recommend, especially for Zig Rigs?

Cheers,
Andy Edwards

Hi Andy,

To be honest I have absolutely no idea whether they can see red or not, and it’s not something I worry about! I know that someone recently wrote an article saying carp can’t see red, but I think this was more to do with the fact that they were trying to justify why they looked so silly years ago wearing bright red clothing!

Carp get caught on all sorts of coloured baits, whether they are fished as Zigs or otherwise. I even know that a small piece of black foam can be a killer bait at this time of year, and I wonder how visible that is? My advice would be to experiment with things. I haven’t caught many fish on Zigs, but the ones I have caught have all been on bright yellow foam or pop-ups. A lot of my mates swear by using dark red baits on Zigs, so who really knows? I would think it’s more important to get the height of the Zig right so the bait is right under their noses, so to speak. Playing around with Zigs is something I will be doing this year for sure, as I know it’s a very underestimated way of catching carp on a lot of venues.

Spug